06/12/2014

David Almond shortlisted for inaugural YA Book Prize

‘A Song For Ella Grey’ by UEA alumnus David Almond has been shortlisted for The Bookseller’s inaugural YA Book Prize, which is sponsored by Movellas and is worth £2,000 to the winner. The book was published earlier this year by Hodder. David graduated from UEA with a BA in English and American Studies in 1973 and has since published nearly twenty other books, including two novels for adults. He was shortlisted in 2011 for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize for ‘My Name is Mina’, the prequel to his bestselling first novel for children, ‘Skellig’, which was published in 1998 and won that year’s Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread children’s prize. ‘My Name is Mina’ was also nominated for the 2012 UK Literacy Association Children’s Book Award. Both of his 2012 publications for children, ‘The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas’ and ‘Mouse Bird Snake Wolf’, were longlisted for the Carnegie Medal in 2014. The winner of the YA Book Prize will be announced on 19 March.